Urban reform in England and Scotland, 1750-1835: A comparative study.

摘要

This thesis is based on a comparative study of urban services in England and Scotland in the half century or more after the Industrial Revolution. The main argument is that urban reform was locally initiated in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and was motivated by the growth of towns from small communities to sprawling urban centers. Through ad hoc bodies such as Improvement Commissions in England and Police Commissions in Scotland, British towns were already providing their citizens with urban amenities such as street lighting, police protection and sanitary services long before the national reforms of the 1830s. The thesis assesses the quality and quantity of urban services before the 1835 English Municipal Corporations Act and the 1833 Scottish Burgh Reform Act, and it compares the quality quantity of Scottish urban services with English urban services.